The present disclosure relates to a leak detection system designed to help identify, locate, and calculate the volume of a leak in a confined water transport system such as pipelines, tunnels, aqueducts, levees, canals, and dikes. Confined water distribution systems typically have losses that may range from ten percent, in the case of reasonably new and well-maintained systems, to fifty-percent or more.
Water distribution systems within the United States and in both developed and developing nations throughout the world often compriseor include aging infrastructure wherein leaks continue unabated or arise with increasing frequency. With water shortages and pollution looming as major concerns in urban, suburban, and rural areas, the ability to rapidly and economically detect, quantify, and repair leaks in water delivery systems (and in other pipeline type delivery systems) is critical from both financial and environmental perspectives.
Traditional methods for detecting leaks in piping systems have been costly and inexact in their results. Generally, these involve direct examination of water transport systems either through excavation or by inserting a sensory probe into the transport system to visually inspect it. In many cases, small cracks or fissures that are not readily detectable even under video or tactile inspections may actually be the source of a large leak. Similarly, locating what may appear to be the source of leak can be found not to be a leak at all after the expensive and disruptive process of excavating at the location of the inaccurately determined source of a leak.
Most water transport systems are maintained by municipal governments that have fiduciary responsibility for taxpayer funds. In today's municipal infrastructure environment, such funds are limited and government bodies and regulated utility providers can ill afford a trial-and-error approach. The present disclosure below relates to a method for economical and accurate detection, quantification, and remediation support for leaks in piping systems using a probe equipped with electromagnetic sensors.